


famous last words

by regularturtle



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Caduceus Clay Needs a Hug, Caduceus Clay-centric, Gen, Post-Episode 130, and understand what the heck happened in the ten-ish years her family was frozen, just Calliope trying her best to be a good sister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 05:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30134445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regularturtle/pseuds/regularturtle
Summary: Calliope tries to understand her own feelings about how much her brother has changed in the ten years the rest of them were frozen. Post-episode 130, because hooo boy that was a lot emotionally!
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Calliope Clay, Caduceus Clay & Clay Family
Comments: 9
Kudos: 59





	famous last words

**Author's Note:**

> calliope @ the mighty nein: fucked up a perfectly good firbolg you did, look at him he has anxiety  
> calliope @ her own family: .....oops we fucked him up too
> 
> That conversation about how Calliope wanted to be the one to save the family? And Caduceus wanted it to be her too? I am SOBBING! this boy never wanted this but he's trying his best
> 
> anyway, Mighty Nein, give your firbolg a hug because he is clearly goin thru it right now and has been goin thru it for ten years

It was never supposed to be him. _It was never supposed to be him._

Caduceus had always been the gentlest of the Clay siblings. They’d known for years that he was going to be the one to take over the Grove’s caretaking, he was going to stay home while the rest of them traveled. While the rest of them looked for a cure.

Calliope had wanted to be the one to save them. Oh, all of them did, really, except maybe Clarabelle who was mostly just excited to come along on the journey. But she’d wanted _so badly_ to be chosen, to be _special_ in the eyes of their goddess.

So when Caduceus had been the one to save them — Caduceus, who’d never stepped more than a few miles outside the Grove throughout his life, who had always said he was content to stay at home, who wanted _her_ to be the one to save them — Calliope was so proud, and so, so envious.

She was quiet about it. Colton clearly wanted it to be him, too, but he’d always been arrogant. And more than anything, Calliope was just happy to have their home safe for the first time in any of her generation’s lives. But that bitterness still sat inside her in the months after she was freed from stone, that want to be out there having an adventure in the place of her brother.

She felt absolutely terrible now for ever feeling any anger towards him.

This Caduceus that she had spoken to, this was not the brother she knew. Caduceus had always been soft, gentle, a little bit silly, more than a little bit weird, but always her kind younger brother. This man that had sat before her, nearly ten years older than the last time she saw him, this was someone else. Someone changed by ten years spent in a fog of loneliness, wondering if his family was dead or alive and wondering whether or not the curse would take his home before they returned. Changed by the things he had seen throughout his journey, changed in many ways for the better but haunted by just as many too. Tormented by this enemy they were about to bring an end to — and convinced that it would be his end as well.

He had sounded _broken._ That silly younger brother was still there, the one that had shoved her into the pool at the Menagerie, but there was this thick layer of something else clouding him now too. This was her little brother. It wasn’t fair.

She couldn’t help feeling some anger towards his friends, if she was being honest — what had they put him through? But if any of this was their fault, then it was equally their family’s fault too. However unintentionally, they had left him alone for ten years in a garden that was rotting around him.

He’d succeeded in his quest. The Grove was safe, even if the curse on the Savalirwood itself remained. He should have come home, and yet he felt it was his _duty_ to keep going.

She had thought it was her duty to save the Grove, so she understood.

He just had to come home safe, and then they could work through this. She would pray to the Wildmother every day, every night until he came home safe, and she wouldn’t think about how absolutely convinced he was that he wouldn’t come home, because he had to.

Caduceus would come home, and they’d all be together as a family again.

**Author's Note:**

> really embracing my middle school MCR fan self with this title huh? famous last words still slaps though
> 
> the clay stans have been fed. we've been waiting 100 episodes for a Deep Cad Talk and we finally got it! thank you matt and taliesin for this gift
> 
> check me out on tumblr @regularturtle for me sobbing about how much I love our firbolg :')


End file.
